


Steps

by sneebs



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 13:51:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15196145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sneebs/pseuds/sneebs
Summary: Annabeth and her step-family.





	Steps

She’d come in to drop off my laundry for me. Which was nice of her, I guess, so I nodded and gave her a small, tight smile before turning away to my books. My brain fuzzed and unfocused. My ADHD began to start fizzling and sparking out. There were too many books out in front of me all of a sudden. I was reading the same sentences over and over again without really hearing them or understanding what they meant.

I knew she was still in the room, hovering next to me. I kept my back turned, pretending to read.

It wasn’t like I really  _hated_ her. At least, not anymore. It was hard, having a demigod as a child. Especially if it was a child that wasn’t even yours. I hated seeing things from her point of view, but being a child of Athena, I couldn’t help understanding. Who’d want a kid that brought monsters wherever they went? 

But still. I was a  _kid_. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.

We made our peace last year. At first, I thought it might even be tense with my dad, but he fixed that right when I walked up to him.

He enveloped me in this big bear hug with a crazy sort of grin on his face. His hair was a little mussed to one side, like it always was. I awkwardly patted him back, but smiled into his shirt. I touched Thalia’s tree and looked out into the valley. A flutter of butterflies settled down in my gut. “Whatever happens with my new family,” I firmly thought to myself, “This family will always be there for me.”

With a pang, I thought of Luke and his promises. The way he disappeared from camp.

No. I forced myself to think of the strawberry fields. And Chiron. Marcus, Tim, Stanley, my brothers from the Athena cabin. A new recruit I’d just met, recently claimed by Aphrodite: Silena. Grover. Thalia’s tree. Even Mr. D, or Clarisse. 

And Percy.

I stood up straight, turning back to my stepmother and stepbrothers. 

“Hi, Annabeth,” my stepbrothers chorused together like they rehearsed it. Their hands were awkwardly at their sides. I gave a smile and told them hello. Once we started walking down the hill, they took off shrieking and running, falling down and laughing along the way.

My dad had his arm around my shoulder. 

I stole a glance at my stepmother.

She wasn’t ecstatic. Her hands twitched at her sides. She attempted a smile at me, saying, “So how was your summer?” But it was a little forced. There was some tension.

Before I could tense up myself, I realized it was because she was nervous.

Her eyes were settled a little lower on my face, not quite meeting my eyes. Her thumb rubbed against the side of her index finger. She was careful, obviously trying not to do the wrong thing.

And I also realized that my dad was the same way. Not for himself, necessarily, but for her. He wanted us to be okay. They were really trying again, at least for now. It might be too early to see for sure. But at the moment, they were willing to fix whatever we broke.

“Oh,” I found myself saying. “Well… It was pretty intense. There was a lot of almost dying. But-” I added quickly, “My team won on capture-the-flag…”

And they listened. Made appropriate comments when they needed to. It was still pretty awkward, but we were all trying, and somehow we got into normal conversations about movies and what I missed for the past 5 years and what my dad had been up to. It was all very normal.

I realized I kind of missed normal.

That was last year, before the summer started up again. It wasn't… bad. My stepbrothers quickly became annoying, but a sort of bittersweet sort of annoying. My stepmother and I made awkward talk… I even told her about the quest. Her eyes widened at all the right places and she tried to understand more about the history, letting me talk on about the gods and the mythology behind them. It was probably the best moment we’ve had. We were still uncomfortable after, obviously. But we were better. 

Things were better. 

I came back from the summer of the Golden Fleece a thousand times heavier and a thousand times lighter. Thalia was back. What this meant for the future, we didn’t really know. But I did know that I had my friend during the week and my dad during the weekends, with Percy and Grover and Camp Half-Blood a long taxi drive away.

Everything was pretty perfect, besides the small fact that Luke… was being Luke out there still. 

And, then, suddenly, of course my dad had to go and get a job.

In the place no demigod could ever go. 

Infested with monsters. 

San Francisco.

He told me about a month ago. Only four weekends with my family and suddenly he’s telling me he has to leave and if I could go with.

This was one of the last weekends I had left with him. Of  _course_ I couldn’t go. How could he even think I  _could_ go? And what about the family? Wasn’t he putting them in danger if I went? Why couldn’t he see that? If I hadn’t been a problem before, I’d certainly be a problem now. 

She cleared her throat. I snapped out of my thinking and faced her. She was pretty, in a much different way from my mom, with her dark highlighted hair and her dark eyes and softer cheekbones… I swallowed that thought away. I shouldn’t compare them. Not like that. It was impractical.

“I heard you weren’t coming with us." 

"Oh,” I said, feeling a prick of anger- at what? Her? My dad? Everything?- “Yeah. Yeah, no, I’m just staying at boarding school with Thalia.”

There was a pause. She looked like she was fighting with herself over what she should say. And then, “Is Thalia the reason, then? You don’t want to leave her alone…?”

“ _No_ ,” I said, “Of course not. Thalia can handle herself. I mean, yeah, I just got her back, but… no.”

She waited, shifting from one foot to the next. I exhaled. “ _San Francisco,"_ I nearly spat, but I made it a sigh instead. "It's… terrible for people like me. It’s right… where the monsters are.” I checked up on her to see how she was reacting. She just looked a little worried. For what? Me? Her?

“I  _can't_ move there. We’re not supposed to. It’s just not safe,” I said a little bitterly. 

“But… you're  _Annabeth_ ,” she said, trying for a light-hearted tone. “You, uh, saved the lightning, and the, uh, camp tree of camp-”  _The Camp Tree of Camp._ I almost snorted. "You can handle anything!“

It was very disgustingly over optimistic.

 _It’s not like that!_  I wanted to put my hands in my face. _It’s not some_ game.  _There might be a monster I won’t be able to fight!_

 _But you did go to Hell and back,_ I reminded myself.

"The monsters would be putting you guys into danger, too,” I said, even more bitterly than before. “They could follow me to the house. They could get Matthew and Bobby- you realize that? They might be tumbling outside somewhere, and in a split second, they’re gone, all because I led them into a trap and didn’t know it. You and Dad wouldn’t even be able to help, because the Mist there is overwhelming and you probably wouldn’t even see that anything was wrong. It’d ruin everything. I’d ruin everything.”

I was a little harsh in my words. They kind of spit out, and I wish that I could take them back. I was attacking her, when all she was doing was wanting me to go. Was it her fault that San Francisco is the monster city of all cities?

“So, yeah,” I said, trying to regroup myself. “I don’t want that to happen to you guys. But it’s okay. Thalia’s with me. You’re right- I need to spend some time with her. And-”

She spoke up randomly. “What about Percy?”

It was a complete change of subject.

My breath caught in my throat a little. “What- What about him?”

“Have you been seeing him as well?" 

I didn’t like her tone. There was a hint of knowing in her voice, and in her eyes. I told my dad and her about him as a friend that I made, one that went with me on both quests, and she always asked a little more about him than I liked her to. 

"Um,” I said, remembering the chariot race he, his brother Tyson, and I won. And sailing the seas together, across a small lifeboat from a ship that he managed to set on course. And him turning into a guinea pig, of course. I choked on a laugh. “Um-”

Yes, I thought about meeting up with him, maybe for coffee, or a movie, or just to talk. But… it was a long subway ride from St. Andrews (my boarding school) to his street in Manhattan. Once, when he was in Brooklyn… yeah, he dropped by to say hi, and me, Thalia, and him went for coffee for a sparing hour or so. But other than that- 

Also, there was the slight issue of being… alone, or not. Going to a movie alone with Percy. I hate to admit it, but it was daunting. Thalia was always at St. Andrews for the weekends. My dad and I’ve invited her over, and everything, but Thalia just prefers to be alone sometimes. She needs that time to herself in her system.

Anyways. I guess I could’ve really beg Thalia to come down to see Percy with me for a day. But I got annoyed at the idea of not being alone with Percy just as much as I got nervous at the idea of being alone with Percy.

Which is stupid. We’ve been on  _quests_ together. We’ve spent almost 5 days together alone, just the two of us. And I’m Annabeth Chase.  _I should be able to go to a movie with Percy Jackson._

The weird part is that when we’re together, all my nervousness disappears. Everything’s okay again. He’s the Seaweed Brain, and I’ve got it together.

But when I’m by myself, with these thoughts…

“Um, no, not really. We haven’t really gotten to hang out, or anything.”

“He’s a good friend of yours, isn’t he?”

“The best,” I accidentally said, and suddenly I was seeing another memory, one that was horrible at the time but sort of… sweet to think of afterwards. One where I had broken down and Percy was there, holding me, while I continued to cry at the bottom of the ocean. “We, um, went to look for the Fleece together. Which you already know. And we won the chariot races together. And-”

“The lightning.”

“Yeah. The lightning. And too many other things to count. But yes, we’ve been, uh, emailing. But he lives in Manhattan, and is pretty busy, so…”

She raised her eyebrows and smiled. “Well, he sounds like a great guy.”

“Oh, my gods,” I said in a rush, and she laughed, and I realized-  _this was girl talk. We are attempting to girl talk._ I got a little angry, thinking that she couldn’t just  _step in_ \- is that why they call them stepmothers? Because they  _step in for the mother?_ \- and be my  _mom_ , but I knew that that wasn’t really what she was trying to do.

She was just being there for me. 

And I didn’t love her or anything. But I definitely didn’t hate her. 

She got up and brushed her clothes down. “All right. Well, Annabeth, I hope to see you sometime. Maybe we’ll come back for winter break vacation, or spring break…?”

“You’re not leaving yet.”

“Oh. Of course. We still have a few weekends left.” She hovered just for a couple of more seconds, ready to say one last thing.

Matthew shrieked from the other room. 

She smiled tiredly at me.

It wasn’t love. But they were steps in the right direction.

_Steps._

Maybe that’s what the step in stepfamily stands for.

Steps in the right direction.


End file.
